Fear of Failure

Post Reply New Topic

It has come to my attention that I've been to hard on my mother on this site. It's a good thing she doesn't know what I have said about her here and hopefully never will. She knows that I lack the motivation to rise any higher than the humble cart pusher I am. She has yelled at me to put some effort in and further my education and she is right to do that.

I've just failed so much in life. My school years consisted of one humiliating social blunder after another. I became so bitter, so bigoted and so full of hate. Of course that only made things worse because I'm sensitive. I can dish it out but I can't take it so I've learned never to dish it out. I used to be good at math but in my early teens my math skills began to drop. I was an honor student in grades 9 and 10 but my grades slipped further and further as I went through grades 11 and 12. I graduated but am embarrased by the marks I got. I remember when I was in grade 11 there was this girl in one of my classes who was quite eccentric and was into manga and had jet-black hair. When I look back on those days I find myself deeply attracted to her image in my memory. Unfortunately I was such an ignorant bigot at the time that I never even gave her a chance - and it was as clear to me then as it is now that she was attracted to me. STUPID! STUPID!! ! I tried to get in touch with her after high school but I couldn't find her. I gave up quickly. Now I think about her every night. Why did I have to be so stupid?

Now it seems like I don't have any ego left. No real confidence in any of my views. I'm afraid of failure. I'm afraid that any attepts at success in anything will end in failure. I'm also afraid of dealing with people - and afraid that any supposed technique to improve one's social skills will turn out to just be a scam. It makes sense to me that people would go after us by selling us methods of improving social skills that don't work since - according to some stuff I've heard - we tend to be more gullible than the average person. I don't want to live my life not working, but it's hard for me to believe I can.

Not sure I know what to tell you, being in about the same predicament myself: alone, paranoid, socially reclusive, etc. As for gullible, well, we're either that or paranoid (too trusting, or nowhere near). About the only thing i do now is try to stay sane and just survive . . . I'd live if I knew how (course the definition of living is subjective). If you have learned from your mistakes, that's about all you can do to prepare for future encounters (but, being like me, you're so afraid of trying, you feel there is no reason to just because you would not know why something failed ). I just hope fewer of us wind up like that, angered and depressed with a world we cannot seem to grasp 75% of the time (the remaining 25% is the stuff we can quantify).

That aside, if you know said girl's name, try Facebook or Myspace . . . it's a fair chance she's there somewhere. Might be a tad easier to reconnect online before you try anything face to face (assuming she still isn't seeing someone). That aside, good luck . . . perhaps you will find/understand something where I couldn't.

I can understand those feelings of frustration but somewhere along the line I changed my perspective. I am a stupendous failure by most standards. I decided what I wanted to achieve in life was not external but internal. Think of all of our intellectual and technical advances we humans have made over the ages. Then consider how despite these advances we still play the same script of greed and power and ego gratification over and over again. When you think about all the suffering in the world, the perpetrators of that suffering are operating on these same very primal impulses. I can choose to stop the cycle of retaliation for instance, by walking away and not seeking revenge over an injustice but instead work to change the injustice. I have no illusions that the world will suddenly become wonderful just because of this viewpoint; I just see no reason to join in the great human mudwrestle. Your value is intrinsic DarthMetaKnight, it's not because of your job.

I try to accept this, but I just can't do it. I'm sorry. I may live in a capitalist society but I have the mind of a comrade. I see everyone else's life as having intrinsic value and determine the value of my own life by my capabilities. I can't be happy unless I feel as though I'm helping someone or defending someone from harm. Throughout my early teens I convinced myself of many things that were definately not true so I could attempt to spread belief in such things in order to feel like I was helping people. It's simply my nature. Being rational would be a lot easier if I wasn't so caring. For now, I've decided to keep trying. I've decided to take a math course. Maybe I'll succeed. Maybe I could become a paleontologist.

Sometimes I wish I was living in the stone age - then I could spend my time defending toddlers from wild wolves. I'd be happy doing that.